Three's A Crowd

The Bowl Championship Series was supposed to bring some order and sanity to college football with the unveiling of its complicated formula for ranking teams.

It was supposed to identify more fairly the No. 1 and 2 teams in an effort to put together a national championship game.

It was supposed to take a little of the myth out of the crowning of the mythical national champion.

But with the regular season careening to a wild close today, there has never been more controversy or debate about who's really No. 1 or who deserves to play for the national championship.

The Bowl Championship Series hasn't sorted out the chaos that is college football's postseason. If anything, it's only confused and confounded the fans trying to follow the title chase.

Heated debates are raging at water coolers across the land with Tennessee, UCLA and Kansas State all undefeated heading into today's big games. If they all win, each will boast strong credentials for playing in the No. 1-2 Fiesta Bowl matchup in Tempe, Ariz.

Still, somebody will be left out. Some fans will be in an uproar over the injustice. In that respect, the BCS will have solved nothing.

"We said all along it's not a perfect system," BCS spokesman Charles Bloom said. "There is a flaw. We haven't figured out how to get three undefeated teams on the field at the same time."

But here's the thing: If one of the top three teams loses, leaving a clear-cut No. 1 and 2 to play for the national title, the BCS will be declared a glorious success. In fact, the BCS will argue that the furious debate surrounding this weekend's grand finale of games will have served to heighten passion for the sport.

The BCS uses the two major polls, three computer-rating systems, a strength of schedule barometer and adds losses to gain a number value for each team. The lower the value, the higher the rating.

Tennessee is No. 1 in the BCS, UCLA is No. 2 and Kansas State is No. 3.

"People are miffed here, but more than anything they're confused," says Mike Sieben, president of the Manhattan 'Cat Backers, a booster club supporting undefeated Kansas State. "They don't understand how the formula works."

The BCS has No. 1 Tennessee leading UCLA by .04 points. Kansas State trails UCLA by 1.28.

Even Jeff Sagarin, a mathematician from MIT who devised one of the three computer systems being used by the BCS, is astounded by how the title hunt is playing out.

"Somebody could get decimaled out," Sagarin said.

Decimaled out? That may be the craziest fact in this title chase.

The national champion may not be decided by a fumble or interception this year. It hasn't always been decided on the field, anyway. But this time the decisive vote may not be cast by an overweight sportswriter, or a coach with ulterior motives. This time, a mathematician's algorithm may decide who plays for the championship. That means margin of victory matters. And that means a meaningless fourth-quarter touchdown meant to run up the score against a weak opponent could decide who plays for the national title.

"It was funny the first time I said this could come down to decimals," Sagarin said. "It's not funny anymore. It's sad."

If Tennessee (11-0) defeats Mississippi State in the Southeastern Conference Championship, if UCLA (10-0) defeats Miami, and if Kansas State (11-0) defeats Texas A&M, it's likely the top three teams won't budge in the AP media poll or USA Today/ESPN coaches polls.

That means computer ratings by Sagarin, The New York Times and the Seattle Times will be the decisive factors in deciding who plays for the national title.

CBS Sportsline, using figures provided by Sagarin, determined this week that if the top three teams all win, it's possible Tennessee could be eliminated by ten-one hundredths of a point.

"It could get ugly," Sagarin said.

Critics call the formula farcical, because it encompasses everything that's bad about poll systems. It includes media and coaches with possible biases and computers with quirks. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder isn't media friendly, and K-State followers believe that's why the Wildcats are No. 2 in the AP poll. But coaches are under suspicion for having ulterior motives, too. They can vote themselves a big bonus by ranking themselves or their buddies high enough to get into a $12 million BCS bowl game. Maybe a computer can't be biased, but some wonder. The New York Times poll has one-loss Florida State as its No. 1 team.

Here's what really drives the BCS critics nuts:

Before the season, American Football Coaches Association Executive Director Grant Teaff committed the coaches poll to declaring the Fiesta Bowl winner its national champion. What's farcical about that is Kansas State is now No. 1 in the coaches poll. That means if the season ended today, the coaches' No. 2 and 3 teams would play for the national title with no chance their No. 1 team could win it.

"It's an extraordinary year," Bloom said. "We did a lot of research and review in creating the formula, and we found years where there were three undefeated teams, but we never found a year where they were ranked No. 1, 2 and 3."

Bloom said the BCS is considering altering the computer models being used, but he declined to be specific.

"We will take the formula apart and dissect it again in the offseason," he said. "We think it's comprehensive, and we would like it to be more comprehensive."

If another undefeated team is left out of the national championship picture, BCS critics will only grow louder.

"I totally believe that until it's played out on the field, nobody will know who the true national champion is," UCLA coach Bob Toledo said.